The Perfect Murder
by vampirechica18
Summary: It's a one shot...and its kinda creepy. I had a dream someone did this to me...it was very odd. I just had to write it down.


The Perfect Murder

She awoke to the warm summer sun shining in her face, the whistle of birds drifting in through the open window, with the wind. She raised her eyes from her lush blue silk comforter to see the expectant face surrounded by a mess of brown curls.

Her young brown eyes, only seasoned by four years, were pleading with her mother.

"Please mom? Today?" her voice was so soft that the loud almost kindergartener and her mother were both surprised.

"Maybe," the overprotective mother stated. She knew it wasn't about the fact that Holly wanted to wade in the creek alone, but it was the freedom. "Let's do make breakfast," she said with her arm around her daughter.

The sizzling of turkey bacon and egg substitute made Sarah bright-eyed and cleared her head when it was mixed with the smell of twelve grain bread burnt to a crisp, just the way she liked it.

She smiled as she heard the padding of unnaturally big feet for a four year old on the stairs. Soon Holly would arrive on the landing in her swimsuit with a towel in her hand. She was considering letting her wade in the water without her there today – as long as she stayed out of the trees and in sight of the window in the kitchen. She knew there was a deep point in the creek, in the trees, about six feet deep. She should probably have Mariah, her neighbor and longtime friend watch Holly all the same.

When Holly got down the stairs, Sarah raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow.

"You think I'm just going to let you wade in the creek all by yourself?" Sarah grinned. "What do I get in return?"

"A kissy, mommy!" Holly kissed her mother on the cheek and ran out the French doors, having no idea it was going to be her last time.

"Keep in sight of the window! Don't go into the trees!" Sarah called fruitlessly. "I love you!"

She smiled as she dialed her best friend's cell phone number. "Mariah, could you keep an eye on Holly for me? She's going wading behind your house. Just make sure she doesn't go behind the trees, please? Thank you."

Holly was ready to jump in the crystal clear water, maybe even dunk her head. She'd done it before, when her mom was pretending not to watch, so she was sure she was an expert on the subject.

Her eyes narrowed as the sun rose to meet her face while she was examining the expansive green lawn all the way up to the large, white, immaculate house she was accustomed to. Her eyes slowed on the windows of the kitchen. She saw her tall, lean mother's dark brown curly head bob in the window. She faintly heard the familiar sound of the robotic vacuum that you push a button on and it cleans. She smiled. Her mother was very cleanliness oriented, and cleaning was one of her hobbies. Especially when she was nervous. That and working out.

Her gaze shifted to the large house next door, the one she was behind. She already knew in her four-year-old mind that the forest green mansion housed her mother's best friend, Missy Mariah, who kept her in the loop. Her eyes narrowed even further as her eyes met Missy Mariah's and Missy Mariah jumped in the window she was in. Her mother wanted Missy Mariah to _spy _on her!

Holly smiled. For a four-year-old she was surprisingly perceptive.

"I'll just go into the forest. Then Missy Mariah won't see me and think I've gone home!" Holly said mainly for her benefit.

Mariah smiled at the little girl in the bright yellow swimsuit with the bright green towel. Maybe she could go get a drink of water…she was really thirsty. Right as Holly into the creek, Mariah was out of her chair and walking down the stairs with the intention of getting a drink of her favorite artesian spring water, Fiji. As she was reaching into the fridge for her water, she heard a scream and some splashing.

She saw a tall streak of fashionable blue Juicy velour sweats. She ran out of her house as the screaming subsided. She saw the blue sweats reach the creek and jump in, dragging out the limp form of her daughter.

Mariah was horrified at the sight she saw. As another bout of screaming started, she whipped out her cell phone and dialed 911, turning to the woman kneeling over the four-year-old's body.

She could faintly hear the sirens screaming as they advanced. "She's gone…gone…gone," Sarah shrieked as she rocked Holly in her arms.

The paramedics came and took Holly to the hospital. As the doctor was coming out of the ER, shaking his head and snapping off his gloves, he told them, " I'm sorry. There was nothing we could do."

Sarah started shrieking at the doctor to do everything again, all the while thinking, "She can't be dead! She never knew her father! He never got to meet her in prison!" Then she stopped. If Mariah had been WATCHING like Sarah asked her to, Holly would still be alive!

She turned to Mariah, furious. "You didn't watch her! It's your fault she's dead!"

"It's not my fault. You're her mother," Mariah replied timidly.

"WHAT?! WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?!" Sarah shrieked, losing control of her world around her. She didn't like it.

"I _said, _it's not my fault. She was the one who decided to go into the woods, and you're her mother. You should have watched her," Mariah replied, bolder this time. She stood up straighter, unfolding the heavy crease in her back.

Sarah gasped and slapped Mariah squarely on the face. Her face contorted with pain, and she clutched at the red handprint on her face as it was appearing. "Why?" she said breathlessly as she turned and walked away, holding her injured cheek and pride.

She woke to the laughing and happy shrieks of little children as well as the high squeaks of a trampoline mixed with the ripe smell of her own sweat. She cringed and wondered how long it had been since she took a shower or gone to work.

Then the anger set in.

The hot, loud anger that roared in her ears. It was a Friday, the perfect day for it. She had her little cousins over, and Sarah knew Mariah would have her weekly orange juice with vodka and ice cubes after they left. The perfect murder. Tonight. She'll get her back tonight. She looked out at the wide expanse of frozen grass as she chuckled and went downstairs. "Tonight," she smirked.

When the veil of darkness set in, she was ready. She had slipped on a wet suit, two pairs of gloves, a swimming cap, and had a pair of booties to put on after walking over to Mariah's. She couldn't leave any trace…she'd seen those CSI shows. She was ready.

She made sure Mariah was enjoying her drink in her family room, on the side of the house above the trampoline, and slipped out the door.

She had an ice cube in her right hand, ready for action. She stepped up the stairs, taking great care to avoid the third, ninth, and fifteenth steps as she knew they were creaky and would give her away. She reached the top, and found Mariah sitting on her couch with her drink and the remote.

Sarah was careful as she crept up behind Mariah with the ice cube in her hand. She quietly crouched behind Mariah's blonde head and her white leather couch on the white shag carpet. It was now or never.

Mariah laughed and opened her mouth as wide as it would go. She had obviously had many more drinks before Sarah arrived. Sarah jumped up from her hiding spot and jammed the ice cube down, down, down into her trachea.

Sarah around to the front of the overstuffed couch, chuckling, as Mariah clutched at her throat. She heard the dog coming up the stairs, and saying her final words to Mariah, she climbed out of the window. "That's what you get."

She slipped out of the window and grabbed onto the windowsill. She tried to close the window all the way, but it was still open as she dropped to the trampoline below. She heard the huge St. Bernard's worried bark as she slipped into her dingy house.

She changed and went back to Mariah's house. "Help!" she screamed into the phone. "My best friend!"

When the investigators arrived with their kits, they all looked annoyed. "I was sleeping!" one of them was bold enough to complain. "The ME already examined the body and determined it was an accident. Why are we here?"

This whiner's name was Tyler Eriksson. Once he stepped under the crime scene tape, though, he was sure it was a murder. The window was open, and it was sub-zero. It was Canada during winter, of course!

"I'll need your DNA to rule out everything at the crime scene that's yours," Tyler told the victim's disheveled next-door neighbor who lived in the crummy house next door.

"Ok," She agreed meekly. "Was she…murdered?" she hesitated.

"We're trying to rule that out right now. You'll be the first to know," Tyler smiled in a miserable attempt to make her feel better.

Everyone around him thought it was an accident. Tyler disagreed.

The window was his first and strongest lead. As he looked through its crystal clear transparency at the people in the lawn taking footprints, he saw it. There was some saliva on the window. He swabbed it and prepared it to take to the lab, then turned around to run smack right into the next-door neighbor's stare.

"The saliva off the window turned up as a match to the neighbor," Tyler told everyone in the room. "Who wants to come help me pick her up?"

When they arrived at Sarah's gray once white house, all they found was a note taped to the door.

Tyler pulled it off, along with some paint chips. He read in a surprised tone, "It was me. I'm sorry. She let my baby die! I've gone for a long swim. I'm sorry."

They all ran to the back, to the creek, and when they got there, they saw something floating, bobbing, in the water.

As he bent down to look down at the body floating in the now murky waters, Tyler said, "She went for her last swim."


End file.
